Page 46

I thought, at the very least, the silence here would bring peace. It only made the noise in my mind grow louder. I was right about the Sanctum of the Seraphim. It extended farther than the throne room where Dante had revealed himself as the Prince of Elsewhere.

Guards had led me through so many doors I had no recollection of the way out. Everything was made of the same grand black marble, all of the tunnels and rooms that stretched below Evermore and made up the Sanctum.

Orders from the High King. The girl must be secured until she has Fallen. I still didn’t know why they’d taken me here, underground and away from the dorms. My mind reeled, chasing fragments I couldn’t quite fuse. Dante, the High King, the Archangels, the binding spell. They wanted me to Fall.

Was this where they had taken Ruby, too? Was this where they took all the students who showed any ounce of disruption?

No. I doubted very much that every defiant student was placed in a room like this one. Godwin said Ruby was in the lower levels of the Sanctum, and I could still see light spilling through the cracks in the stained glass high above me. I must be in the upper levels. This was Dante’s doing.

But why? Why not throw me in with the other students?

The room they’d placed me in was beautiful, in the way a trap was.

Gilded and inviting, built to make you forget you were caged.

A grand fireplace roared on the far side of the room, its flames silver instead of gold, casting flickering shadows against the obsidian floors.

I could feel his touch all over this place.

His presence laced the walls, brushing my skin like an unseen hand. He was everywhere, in the hush between heartbeats, the quiet corners of my mind and now in the place that I slept.

A day had passed. I knew it not because I had seen the sky, but because the routine had settled into something unbearable.

The heavy, dark curtains were drawn tight, sealing me away from the world.

I counted time in heartbeats, each one a memory of Dorian’s hands, his voice, the last look he gave me before everything fell apart.

Even here, in the suffocating dark, it was Dorian I clung to.

Meals arrived on silver trays. Wine came in crystal goblets.

I refused it all. Whatever I wanted was given to me.

Books, fresh clothes, even a porcelain tub filled with hot water appeared at my request, but the doors remained locked.

My every whim was indulged except the only thing I truly wanted. Freedom.

My back ached again as I curled into the velvet armchair by the fire, staring at the locked doors. I pressed my nails into my palms. He hadn’t come yet. I didn’t know if that was better or worse, because waiting meant hoping. I’d found hope far crueler than silence.

I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until I felt his voice in the back of my mind. There was a gentle ripple in the silence, a charge curling against my skin like the moment before a storm splits the sky.

The doors opened. He stepped inside like the weight of this place, of what he had done, of what he was now, meant nothing. This was not the voice that haunted my mind, the boy with a mocking smile I’d feared in detention. No, he was gone—if he’d ever existed at all.

This was the Prince of Elsewhere.

I hated that he was ruinous. That his beauty was not softness but cruelty, darkened by this war. But most of all I hated the way my breath caught, the way my body, traitorous and weak, recognized him as something familiar .

He was every terrible thing I had been warned about, the monster lurking beneath my skin, and yet, I could not tear myself from him. I had never been able to.

“Little thief.” Dante whispered my name like it was a curse.

I stirred. “Took you long enough.”

He smirked cruelly. “Apologies,” he murmured. Then, he threaded through my mind, playful. “It’s not easy being a regent.”

Did none of this matter to him? I resisted the urge to throw something at him. Instead, I forced a tight smile. “I see. And what? You came to gloat?”

Power curled just beneath his control as he said, “No. I came to check you were okay.”

“You care, all of a sudden?”

“You need to be of sound body and mind to make the Fall.” A smile twisted at the corners of his mouth. That seemed to be all they cared about, all they wanted from me. All he wanted from me. “Are you? ”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I hummed. “Maybe if I feign madness they’ll finally toss me out.”

“You’re in no position to be clever.”

“Neither are you. Thanks to your little gift.” I gestured to The Fool Card in my pocket. “I know what you and your father did. I know the binding is breaking. They can’t stay trapped forever.”

Dante’s smirk faded. I’d known his cruel indifference well.

But this? This was something new. Dante was not untouchable, and the moment of vulnerability he showed when giving me the card would cost him.

Suddenly, I was grateful for the Thread between us.

My familiarity with him made me realize one thing.

This cool certainty was just another mask, and masks could break.

“You don’t want to mess with things you don’t understand.”

The walls seemed to tighten around us, pressing inward. “I think I understand perfectly,” I said.

Dante hovered for a moment. I could see the battle in his gaze. The war between wanting to break me and wanting to?—

No. I wouldn’t let myself think it. Dante could not feel anything. But beneath all the rage, I was still tethered to him. I still felt that strange pull, that strange sense of familiarity. Trust that was never earned.

“You couldn’t possibly.” His gaze flickered lower, not to my lips, not to my throat. Lower. To my necklace, the Lumen. My hand closed around it.

“I do. In Elsewhere the Dowager warned me,” I said slowly. “She said the Twin Thrones were rising again. That you’d gone to see the High King. Your father. ”

Dante’s jaw clenched, almost imperceptibly.

“But your father’s court fell, the Twin Thrones fell, because two rulers couldn’t hold the balance. So how did the High King manage it? How did he rise again? And,” I glowered. “How are you here?”

Dante didn’t answer straight away, but when he did, something close to grief haunted his features. “My father has garnered quiet support in the shadows for years. The High Council of Archdaemons were the first to jump to his side. ”

“Okay, then.” I looked at him. “What is he planning? Is this all just to take back Elsewhere? And then the After?” The Afterworld.

His silence told me more than an answer could.

“He seems to want me alive.” My voice cracked. “He seems to want… me. But for what, Dante? What am I to him?”

My questioning was met with stark silence. Dread pooled like lead in my stomach. Dante’s brows only furrowed in confliction, like he wanted to speak and couldn’t. Like if he did, I’d never look at him the same again. “You’re not ready for that answer.”

“Then make me ready. I want to understand what’s going on.”

He had no response to that, but his nostrils flared, eyes burning.

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “You pretend you’re noble. But everything you’ve done, binding the Archangels, obeying your father, it’s all selfish as far as I can tell . ”

Dante’s voice dropped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. No idea. ”

“I thought maybe you weren’t like them,” I said, voice rising. “That maybe you’d want to do the right thing. Before it’s too late.”

“The right thing? Do you think they were simply locked away for the sake of cruelty? You don’t know why they were bound. You don’t know what they want.” His fingers tightened, a warning. “The Archangels were sealed for a good reason.”

My pulse climbed. “And you believe that? Truly believe that?”

“If you free them,” Dante said, jaw ticking as his grip shifted just enough to brush his thumb over my cheek. “This isn’t just about power. You don’t know what you will unleash.”

I forced a breath through my teeth. “Let me guess. You do?”

“I know enough,” he whispered. “Enough to know that you will get yourself killed.”

The words should have scared me. Instead, I let my lips curl. “Maybe I don’t care, anymore.”

Dante let out a breath like he had expected my answer, like it disappointed him. “You are rash,” He chided, something almost contemplative threading through the edges of his next words. “You always have been.”

“Well, you are cruel,” I shot back. He hesitated at that, something in his gaze dimming like the words struck him straight between the ribs.

“But you were never reckless…before.” His voice dipped, almost too soft to hear. “Not until me.”

Maybe that was an attempt at an apology. I was impressed. It was almost clever how he’d managed to make it sound so self-centered. “My actions have nothing to do with you Dante, let me make that perfectly clear.”

“Good,” he said flatly. “Then listen carefully. If I give the Arcana to you, breaking the deck will kill you. Eternally. I need you to understand that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

But the doubt had already begun to bloom wild in my chest. What if Dante was right about this?

I thought I knew who the villains were, but I had missed things before.

With Hugo. With the executor. With this place.

Even with myself. I couldn’t afford to be wrong again.

Maybe in all of this the one thing I’d learned was not to trust… myself.

“Fine.” Dante’s smirk fell away. Fury took its place.

“Don’t take my word for it. You think you are finally ready for the truth?

All of it? The Sanctum library is next door.

” The warmth of his hands disappeared too quickly, leaving behind only the aching cold.

“It holds all of the books that can’t be kept upstairs.

The ones that speak for themselves. I’m sure they’ll have a lot to chatter with you about. ”

Before I could speak, he snapped his fingers, and the far door swung open.

Dante straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. “I’m tired of your ignorance.” He turned without another word, and the door slammed shut behind him.